Slovak President Andrej Kiska met with and asked Police Corps President Tibor Gašpar for explanations in connection with the fact that he signed a Statement on Migration issued by an association called the Informal Economic Forum-Economic Club last week. The statement basically mixes xenophobic messages with misinformation trying to present migrants as part of a well organised plan aiming at threating Slovakia. It hints that journalists, liberals and corporations are behind such a plan. It asks the Slovak Government to begin collecting data on the level of education of foreigners who come to work in Slovakia. In reality the Slovak Labour Office (UPSVAR) has been doing this for a long time and even regularly publishes such data on its website, a fact ignored by the authors of the statement. Apart from Gašpar, the text was also signed by a retired general, a few university professors and a former hospital director.
"People's confidence in the work of the police is influenced by how their top officials act and what opinions they share. I expect that Mr. Gašpar will explain to the public why he signed the statement," said Slovak President Andrej Kiska. The Justice Minister Lucia Žitňanská has also asked the Police Chief for an explanation. Gašpar, however, did not reply to media direct requests for comments and didn't want to give any details on the content of the meeting with the president. "We didn't agree that I would comment. I was at the meeting, that's all," Gašpar told TASR press agency. According to the official statistics of the Interior Ministry, which is Tibor Gašpar's employer, last year there were 93,247 foreigners legally residing in Slovakia; a 9.9 percent increase in comparison to 2015. The majority of them are citizens of the European Union and are employed by multinational companies doing business in Slovakia. Last year only 127 people applied for asylum in Slovakia, a 61 percent decrease year on year. Meanwhile the unemployment rate in Slovakia has been going down too; reaching 8.76 percent in December.
